American Muslim School Leadership: Principal and Teacher Perspectives

• Main Author: Elsegeiny, Siham
• Format: Others
• Published: ScholarWorks@UNO 2005
• Subjects: Islamic Schools Leadership
• Online Access: http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/260; http://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1293&context=td

This study employed a quantitative research design using a mail survey to explore leadership style in Islamic schools in the United States. The purpose of the study was to describe levels of transformational and transactional leadership of American Muslim principals. Correlational analyses were used to determine the relationship between principal and teacher reports of principals' use of transformational leadership and the relationship of demographic variables to perceptions of transformational leadership. Multiple regression analyses showed that none of the six demographic variables were significant predictors of the variance in principal- or teacher-reported use of transformational leadership. Thirty-three principals responded to the MLQ 5X selfrating form and 143 teachers responded to the MLQ 5X otherrating form. Principals rated themselves higher than their teachers on transformational leadership and lower than their teachers on transactional leadership. Both principals and teachers ranked principals highest in Inspirational Motivation and lowest in Management-by-Exception Passive. Principals rated themselves as being more intellectually stimulating and less often using contingent reward. In schools where teachers were more congruent in their ratings of the principal, they tended to perceive the principals as more transformational than did teachers in schools where teachers were less congruent in their ratings. It appears that where principals are more consistent in their interactions with teachers, teachers have higher opinions of the principal as a transformational leader. Both teachers and principals rated principals of American Muslim schools as fairly high in the use of both transformational and transactional leadership. Comparisons of these findings to other research in the U.S. suggest that American Muslim principals exhibit leadership characteristics very similar to those of other U.S. principals.